Why do we Pray ???

In simple terms prayer means communicating with Guru/God. Prayer or Puja can be Direct or Indirect/ Actual or Mental. Offering of actual objects like kumkum, flowers, naivedya, fragrance, lighting diyas etc to an idol / murti/ picture /form etc constitutes pratyaksh puja. If same object(s) is offered mentally in imagination to God, this will constitute apratyaksh or manas puja. Constant remembrance of God / Name of God (Naam Jaap) is said to be the most effective prayer.

2. Prayer means conveying your thoughts, beliefs, fears, aspirations, needs to God. Most often, we pray to God for expressing our gratitude or to seek favour with a belief that HE is bestower of everything we need. We believe that God has a vast unimaginable and replenishable reservoir of unlimited divine powers and boons. We pray with awe. We pray in fear. We pray when we want some material object/ position/ service etc. We pray when we want things to go easy for us. We pray when we are sick. We also pray for forgiveness from God. We pray when we want thorns in our life to turn into colorful petals. Some people pray without any reason because praying becomes a habit with them. However, such people are very rare.

3. In actual, we pray when we realize that things are not in our control. When we bend down our head in prayer, we surrender our ego at the feet of Lord. At that moment we admit that we are nothing but helpless in front of his Supreme divine power. We admit that he is magnificent. We admit that Lord is our fortress where we are absolutely safe. When we agree to receive from someone it implies that we have surrendered our ego, it reflects our humility. This means that we have realized we are incapable of manifesting what we are seeking.

4. Pre-requisites for Prayer - Of course there is no dearth of people who are seen asking for favours from fellow human beings with a belief that they can fulfil their needs. However, instead of asking for favours from fellow beings, we must pray to God who gives to each and all. Great Saint of Shirdi, SaiBaba, often said ‘Sabka Malik Ek’(God is One) and his mantra to win over God was ‘Shraddha’(faith) and ‘Saburi’(patience) which will help us in crossing any hardship in our life. Faith and Trust in God comes automatically if we Love God in thoughts, words and action. Patience to wait for the outcome of my prayer to manifest takes away the sting of suffering. This we often lack so much. Most of the time faith and patience swing like pendulum depending upon our present life situations. Needless to mention most of our prayers are towards materialistic gains and less towards spiritual blessings. Another prerequisite for puja is purity of mind, heart, body and soul.

5. What should we pray for - When I sit down to pray often I am confused what should I ask for. SaiBaba said so many times that HIS treasury is full and people can take whatever they want but people ask for worldly things only whereas HE/God/Universe wants to give more.

6. So many times I have tried to imagine and feel what I would do if Lord appeared to me and asked me what my wish is?????? I would be totally speechless in front of HIM. I would have nothing to ask for. If I found the Lord than there would be nothing left to seek. For God is our final destination.

7. Bible says seek the Kingdom of God which is within you. I believe that if I seek the God himself, Kingdom will automatically follow but then there will be no need for Kingdom anymore. The thought itself is so awesome. I doubt if I am deserving enough to reach that stage. Only God knows what my qualifications are.

8. Sometimes, devotees don’t pray with humility but make demands. However, it is felt that we should refrain from making demands from God for it is considered as a demonic virtue.

9. Wise people say that God knows what is good for us and HE will bless us with the same, time and again, at the most right and appropriate moment.

10. Benefits of prayer - Over the years I have come to understand that I pray to reach that hidden and unseen sanctuary of peace and silence within me where the Supreme God resides. With my eyes closed or open, I utilize my prayer time to talk to God just as I would talk to a respectable elderly person. I convey my fears and insecurities, my needs and seek HIS guidance to turn my thoughts and actions towards a positive direction so that I can meet HIM as soon as possible. They say understanding ways of God is very complicated and incomprehensive. I feel that it is possible to understand God provided he showers his Grace onto us. For that we have to reach that highest pinnacle of humanness and be qualified. Power of prayers is so strang that with Grace of God everything becomes possible. It is said that even a single prayer can avert a War-like situation into peace. A mind in prayer is always surrounded by a pious aura and sends out positive vibrations in the Universe.

11. The Divine Universal Power- the Spirit is within soul hidden in our body. This means that we should not consider us separate from HIM. GOD listens to all our spoken and unspoken thoughts and words. So many times I wonder if I have that finesse that will enable God to reside in me!!!!!!

12. Prayers are very powerful - When we pray from depth of our heart, our wish is fulfilled. But our faith shakes when our prayer remains unanswered. We feel God is not looking at us. We either blame ourselves or God. It rarely occurs to us that if our prayer remained unfulfilled than it must be for our own benefit. Sometimes not having something is better than having that thing. If you look back in your life, you will find that most of the time the biggest grace of God came to you when things did not happen the way you wanted. When a bad time comes in our life, it awakens us to so many inner and outer realities of life. Struggling and finding a way out of our hardship is a blessing that God has bestowed on us by not fulfilling our wish because God loves us and wants us to develop our faith, patience, character. So many times we get what we want but that same blessing separates us from God further because once we get what we want, we forget to pray again till another adversity starts to loom its head in our life.

Therefore, if we are spiritually sound, we will not be affected if the prayer does not yield the desire result. Most of us feel that once our material desires are fulfilled and we retire from family obligations we will pray for spiritual grace. However, I feel that we should not wait till old age to ask for such an important blessing. All through our life along with our material needs we should pray to God for guiding us in the righteous direction. We should atone for our mistakes and pray to God to give us enough discrimination so that we do not make such mistakes again. Lot of people confess their sins to Lord and seek his pardon. How relieving that must be.

13. Faith or Trusting in God means that if wish is not fulfilled we should understand that it must be for our own good which we are unable to understand in given circumstances. We are children of God. HE would give us all that that we need and much more at the appropriate time provided we are qualified for receiving the same. A sincere and heartfelt prayer will take us to the final destination – to attain nirvana (liberation from cycle of birth & death) and become Godlike.

Vandana Ritik

Heritage of Shirdi Sai
New Delhi

Why are we born ????

What is the purpose of our life ? Is it just to spend our life studying, getting married, having children, grandchildren, turning old and then dying? Is this all we come to earth for – to learn, struggle, reproduce, make property, enjoy life and then go back? What about those who are born abnormal at birth time itself? What about those who do not lead a normal life? Who told us to live the way we do? Who programmed this kind of life style of self preservation in our psychic? Is that all we are supposed to do?

There has got to be some higher reason for our coming to this earth. God could not have sent us on earth to simply enjoy life and then go back. There appears to be some hidden, secret agenda behind every creation on earth and since we all are unique, the agenda is also uniquely different for each creation of God.

The biggest gift that God/Universe has given us is our faculty to ‘forget’. How complicated it would be if we remember each and every event of this life, past lives and afterlife? If we do not forget, we will not be able to get over our sorrows and our losses. Our soul remembers all. However, in human body we forget that we have any soul at all. The greatest treasures of the world have been found hidden in unimaginable, difficult and yet reachable places. Similarly, the Divine Power of Lord is hidden deep within our soul but we cannot reach it because we have forgotten all about it.

Have you noticed that we are never content with what we have? If our one desire is fulfilled another desires comes up and the cycle goes on. There comes a point in life of a human being when he sits down and thinks that though I have got everything I wanted still I want something ‘more’. In trying to find out what that ‘more’ is we end up fulfilling more material desires and still find something lacking. If we introspect more at this point we will find answer to our actual reason for coming to this earth – which is to know ourselves and to know our creator. To know that we are actually ‘soul’ wearing different ‘body garments’ and our soul is tiny spark of that Divine unseen Power that we call GOD/Brahma/Universe.

But in our normal day to day life we do not think on those lines. Mostly ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is discussed when some one dies. These theories are explained to comfort the relatives of the bereaved and people go back home hoping and believing that nothing of this sort will happen to them or their loved ones or that they will cross the bridge when storm comes. But then why do we have to wait to suffer ourselves to learn this biggest lesson of life? Why cannot we stop and try to understand this mystery in the beginning itself? We all wait to get retired to introspect on the issue thinking that we still have lot of time with us.

In our free time we perform some exoteric religious practices – like going to our place of worship on some specific day, bowing at altar morning and evening, keeping some fasts to please God. Do you think it really works? Are these not mere rituals if we do not perform these rituals with ‘intense feelings’? At esoteric level all major religions in the world speak of that single power controller, a divine unseen form of energy of bright light from which the life begins and in same the life ends. It is like we all have one destination to reach. Only the routes & methods followed to reach the destination are different depending upon what religion one follows or believes in.

What we study in academic books only tells us about how this physical world functions. Religious books tell us about how universe functions. But how do we coordinate between the earthly and universal functions is something we have to realize ourselves. Science has revealed that all matter is made up of energy and at its smallest visible (invisible to naked human eye) form it is not joined to anything. There is a space in between. None has been able to find out what is that energy made up of and what is that space made up of. We are fooled by what we see. There is so much which we do not know despite so much technological advancement. Even our human body is combination of biology(different organs) and chemistry(reactions of different hormones). What is it that is giving life to it? When a person dies, the body is still here but what is it that goes out?

Why cannot we try to understand, feel, realize and see that specific life giving part(soul) inside our body when we are alive? If we cannot fathom our own soul how can we understand the bigger spirit – GOD?

God gave us free will to break free from pursuing this law of self preservation at some point of time in our life to get to know ourselves. Some break free at early age, some in youth age, some in middle age but most of us want to break free in old age when our so called worldly responsibilities are over. But by this time, our body is not healthy enough, our energy is depleting and some of us may not be lucky enough to survive that long. What a waste of life we have made then? It is said that sometimes it takes many lifetimes to understand and to break free from pursuing Self preservation to tread on the path of Self realization and ultimately God realization.

We all are at different levels of soul development and tied up with individually unique prarabdh and karma. This cycle will not stop if we keep on living life only for ourselves and our kiths & kins. The moment we realize what we are made up of and why we are here, we are free from karmas. Karmas are created as long as we think ourselves to be different from God. The moment we realize that God in within each and everyone of us, the pain and pleasure can no longer control us. We start to feel love for each and everyone and are finally free. But then it is easier said than done.

As per ancient Hindu philosophy there are different levels of understanding. Theory, reading or listening is first part. If we remember the same and think consistently on something we have read or heard, we start to contemplate on the same till we practice it. Ultimately, we assimilate this knowledge and get another new layer of understanding from our own experience and we finally realize what we learnt or read. If we start to understand our knowledge about soul in this manner, a day will come when we will be able to see, feel, listen and talk to our own soul.

Meditation is another important tool to get to know oneself. The great Indian Saint Shirdi SaiBaba said that barring our name and body what is left is our soul - the feeling of consciousness - the feeling of being alive. This is our soul. It is our true self.

Our soul talks to us regularly, guides us and reminds us of our purpose of taking birth but we are so lost in outside world that we do not want to look inwards. We just cannot sit alone for long. We are enjoying materialistic world. Sitting all alone, doing nothing makes us shaky and mad. Many workaholics feel this is wastage of time. It is not. Lord Buddha got enlightened during that moment of nothingness – the void – the moment when we are absolutely free of any thought. Weak man would say, ‘I am not Buddha’. But then who is stopping us from becoming like Buddha? We ourselves are creating hurdles for us. If we say that something is difficult then it becomes our reality and thus realizing our own soul becomes absolutely impossible.

Our soul is linked to the divine Spirit. If we cannot listen to our own soul, we will not be able to listen to God’s voice which is constantly emanating through the universe because our own frequency is not tuned precisely to be able to listen to it. During meditation, people have heard lot of such messages, sounds, seen visions which are beyond comprehension of a physical human mind. This happens because during meditation our frequency fine tunes and catches up with the universal frequency and we are able catch the same as per our own capability. The more we meditate the more we are able to catch from the universe and this continues even when we are not meditating. Gradually, our intuitive sense becomes strong and we become aware of our own increasing ‘knowingness’. The universal knowledge is symbolic, secretive and subtle. In moments of solitude, so many secrets are revealed which are beyond recognition of our physical five senses. It is up to us to maintain and continue this internal spiritual communication with universe despite continuing to live in material world.

For listening to our own soul, we need not give up on our worldly duties. Lord Krishna has said that we can connect with our own creator while carrying on with our day to day activities provided we have faith in HIS existence and we are sincerely regular in our efforts. If we have to take ten steps towards God, we have to initiate the journey towards self realization by taking that all important first step. Then the Lord/Universe will take the rest of nine steps towards us because HE knows how difficult it is for a householder, living on earth, to break free from the law of self preservation and to tread towards acquiring self knowledge.

The crux is that Universe listens to our earnest requests and responds to our faithful efforts even though we may not realize it immediately. But we are rewarded with enormous ‘retirement benefits’ in afterlife. No effort made towards spiritual pursuit goes waste. Are we eager to take a journey inwards and tap at the overflowing reservoir of treasure full of universal/God knowledge hidden within our own beings ?

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Life is a Game

Life is like a Game of Monopoly. We trade with money borrowed from Universe for purchasing house, building, hotels, property etc. We also invest on ourselves, our academic learning, growth and attaining a status in Society which makes us feel good.

But when the game of life is over, we go back to God empty handed. We cannot even take our body with us. All that we earn and make here on earth no longer belongs to us. Someone else takes over.

We take re-birth to feel like 'owner' & enjoy the pleasure of the Game again and the cycle goes on till we understand that it is just a game of illusion(God's Maya). The moment we realise this divine truth, we are merged with Divine Spirit and we are not born again.

Vandana Ritik

How to feel God ?

In earlier traditional Hindu Schools, apart from regular curriculum, young children were taught about omnipresence of God. Children were told that God is always watching them no matter where they are or what they are doing. God is aware of all that is happening inside as well as outside us. This ensured that young minds do not indulge in wrongful acts or thoughts from early age. The thought that some universal powers is their watchdog, stopped them from doing any wrong to others. Thus God was operating through their physical bodies correcting them at every wrong step. All actions and thoughts carried out by the human body in this kind of state is actually the WILL of God, i.e., God is the DOER. The person is a mere puppet/ instrument in the hands of God.
In the present modern world, things have changed dramatically. A persons takes out some time to think of God only after he is free and has some time spare from the worldly chores. The person selects a time of the day e.g. morning or evening, or a day e.g. Sunday, Monday etc. During this selected time, the man prays to God, lights few candles or incense sticks, listens to or reads some holy discourse etc and is satisfied. Some even do meditation. Then back to worldly duties.

This change in the attitude of the modern human today sets him apart from the earlier human in the sense that today the man thinks that he is the DOER. Thus he thinks that he is separate from God. In his quest to make his own destiny, the man has gone so far that he has stopped listening to his own inner voice i.e., God’s voice.

This has happened because the new age academic and technical education has completely over shadowed our traditional learning which formed a very strong foundation to our overall persona in childhood itself. Spiritual education is no longer on the curriculum of modern day schools. Today schools are busy generating technocrats and intellectuals who know more about outside world than inner self. The minds is very analytical and always in a state of reasoning. The emphasis today is to develop our skills so that we can earn our livelihood comfortably. But what about our inner thirst.

Our inner core understands all our troubles and obstacles. As our inner core is connected to the Supreme divine, it is always guiding us to take right action in any given situation for the benefit of all and ultimately the SELF. The inner voice cannot be heard, understood or trusted if the physical mind is always in state of reasoning and applying logic. If only we could listen to that perfect inner guidance.
The best way to listen to our Inner voice/ God’s voice is to always feel the presence of God around us. While eating, walking, reading, going to work, watching TV etc we should always feel that God is beside us, just like our shadow. Always be in mental conversation with God. Constant remembrance of God will do wonders to our personality. This will give us enough discrimination to differentiate right from wrong. We will soon understand the futility of meaningless gossip and passing unnecessary judgement on the character of others and thus will be speaking less and criticizing less.

This happens because God starts to work through us and brings about internal change is us. Conserving our energy in positive manner gives us clarity of thoughts and frees our mind from worldly clutter. Having attained peace of mind in this manner, the mind can now easily discard worldly logic and be fine tuned to listen to the inner guidance and act as per its directions. When we are acting as per directions of God we can never go wrong.
Vandana Ritik

Body, Ego, Soul & Spirit

Imagine a bottle filled with water and floating in an ocean. Now try to understand this. The bottle is our Body. The water inside is our Soul. The water in ocean is the higher Spirit or Universe.

All the time we think that we are the bottle, the outer covering. This is because of presence of ego which helps us recognise our bottle i.e, the body. Ego lives as long as body is alive. This body will have a name, color, creed, religion, family, relatives, friends. The body will experience all the pleasures and sorrows in the illusionary world alongwith other bottles floating in the ocean. The body will live, interact and will have social life. Thus the body with the help of physical mind will start having desires, possessions and more desires. Now the feeling of 'I'ness and 'My'ness will arise and ego will start to grow and the growth will be of such a magnitude that the body will be not be able to see the clarity of water/soul inside. The bottle will be so engrossed competing and floating with other bottles that ultimately the water outside will also become invisible to it. Now the bottle will only see the other bottles but no water.

In every bottle the color of glass is ego which alerts us to take necessary measures time to time to keep it fit. As long as ‘spirit’ is inside us we cannot ignore the body because the ‘water’ inside us knows that it is not different from the water outside. It is only body which cannot see the water inside and outside due to its overgrown ego. Just because you cannot see, it doesnot mean that it does not exist. The water is all around us. It is just a matter of being aware of the truth and make efforts to find it.

For a body to experience the human life and creation around, presence of ego is must. The darker the colour of bottle the denser the state of ego is in that individual body. The dark colored bottle will take longer time to see and realize the clarity of the inner ‘water’. Inflated ego creates desires, possessions, separatedness and ultimately pain.

All the activities taken up on behalf of the body represent our material life while all the efforts made to bring out the brilliance of the soul within represents our spiritual journey. The spiritual journey is nothing but removing the veils of ignorance of this reality and to finally experience the ‘oneness’ of water inside and outside and bottle being a mere illusion.

Ego represents our false fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) while Spirit represents love. The journey of the soul is to realise that fear is illusion which was created because of presence of body. Once we understand this illusion/Maya we realise that universe is nothing but love. Fear is nothing but absence of love.

Once we become aware and conscious of this role of ego, it would not take long to make the ‘bottle’ colorless, transparent, shiny and ‘one’ with the water outside.

A balance between material and spiritual life is must if we want to live a happy and contented life.

A wise man lives on the earth without losing sight of his space and place in the universe.

Vandana Ritik